Weekend in London

Nope, we didn't have anywhere planned this weekend. So we pretty much decided to go out in the cold and do some further sightseeing of London. On Saturday, we caught a bus out to Notting Hill and then walked to our old stomping grounds, Portobello Road and the Portobello Market. Despite the grey clouds, it was surprisingly packed. All the way down Portobello Road was jam-packed with allsorts. It's amazing how many different accents and languages you can hear in one place. Even those loud annoying Americans. They're over here too.


We visited, for the first time, this small cake shop called the Hummingbird Bakery at the top of Portobello Road. We've walked past it before and were hypnotised by the cute and colourful cupcakes in the window display, but never ventured inside. We bought two cupcakes, a yellow vanilla sponge one with yellow vanilla buttercream icing and colourful pretty stars, and a chocolate sponge one with green vanilla buttercream icing and stars. (Tam would like to make a point that it was actually "frosting", not "icing" as they describe in their menu, as the 'frosting' was very thickly laid on).


After checking out the stalls in the Market and grabbing a falafel roll on the way, we headed back up to Notting Hill, then on to the Kensington Gardens (which is sort of part of Hyde Park, but separate). We spied these rowdy people in bunny suits. Dirty deviants no doubt.


This is the lovely Miss Tammy holding up the Albert Memorial. That's the Royal (Uncle) Albert Hall behind her. That's where we saw Jamie Cullum and some ballet.


This is the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain thing (in Hyde Park now), that sort of symbolises her life. Tammy says she understands it, but I just don't get it.





After some bird-watching and a few minutes of sleet, we kept on walking and headed down to Knightsbridge. Home of the posh Harrods department store, where we had a browse through of the expensive wares and spent some time ogling the food section. Afterwards, thoroughly 'walked out', we caught a bus home.


Sunday was another calm day of quiet sightseeing. We went out to Shoreditch for some Vietnamese pho noodles. Shoreditch is virtually Little Hanoi and you can find some decent pho and spring rolls around. Not being able to think of anything to do, we headed to Kings Cross to visit Hogwarts.


I then gave Tam a quick tour of UCL (where I'm currently working at). This is the Portico, which is our "main" building (aka Wilkins Building). This is a mini version of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, also designed by the same guy. Ours was actually the practice version he did to sell his idea to the National Gallery people.


The Shaftesbury Memorial (Statue of Eros) at Piccadilly Circus.